Extra British fighter jets will deploy to Middle East, Keir Starmer announces
The Prime Minister also told a Downing Street press conference that a delayed Government-chartered flight from Oman had taken off.
Four extra British Typhoon fighter jets are being deployed to Qatar amid the conflict in the Middle East, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street, the Prime Minister also announced that a Government-chartered flight from Oman to Britain has now taken off, after it was delayed from doing so overnight.
Sir Keir revealed he had chaired a Cobra meeting on Thursday, and acknowledged that people across the UK are “worried sick about their family and friends who are caught up” in a war he said “could continue for some time”.
He added: “I want to reassure the British public about the action that we are taking while the region has been plunged into chaos.
“My focus is providing calm, level-headed leadership in the national interest.”
In an effort to build Britain’s military presence in the region, Sir Keir said four further fighter jets would be sent to the Middle East.
“We are responding to requests from allies in the region for further help,” he said.
“I can announce today that we’re sending four additional Typhoon jets to join our squadron in Qatar to strengthen our defensive operations in Qatar and across the region.”
Two Wildcat helicopters armed with drone-busting missiles will arrive in Cyprus on Friday, the Prime Minister said.
HMS Dragon, a type 45 warship, is also being deployed as part of the build-up, but is unlikely to arrive in the Mediterranean until next week.
The Prime Minister insisted the UK had been preparing for the possibility of conflict “long before” Israeli and US strikes began, by deploying “additional military capabilities to the region to defend our interests”.
The Government has faced criticism over its failure to have enough military assets in the Middle East and the pace of its response after an Iranian-made drone hit the British base RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
Sir Keir stressed protective measures “have always been in place” at the air base and that further assets were pre-deployed in January and February.
Defence Secretary John Healey met his counterpart in Cyprus earlier on Thursday to ease tensions about Britain’s response to drone attacks on the island.
Overnight on Monday, a hangar at RAF Akrotiri was hit by an Iranian-made Shahed drone, which was launched from Beirut in Lebanon, according to Cypriot officials.
Two further drones detected on Monday were shot down by British warplanes, which took off from Akrotiri.
Cyprus’s high commissioner to the UK, Kyriacos Kouros, had said a British military presence to defend the island was “the least we expect” as he pointed to naval assets being sent earlier by other European nations.
Sir Keir also defended against criticism from Donald Trump over the UK’s decision not to get involved in the initial strikes.
The US president said Sir Keir is no Winston Churchill, while the Prime Minister has also faced domestic criticism from his political opponents for failing to build a larger presence in the Middle East before the conflict began.
And in his latest salvo on Thursday, Mr Trump told the New York Post that the UK had been “very disappointing”and that Sir Keir should be supporting the US “without question or hesitation”.
Sir Keir insisted the special relationship between the US and the UK had not been fractured by the disagreement, telling reporters: “Look, the special relationship is in operation right now.”
He added: “We’re sharing intelligence on 24/7 basis in the usual way. That is the special relationship.”
The Prime Minister would not be drawn into directly addressing a report by the Spectator magazine, which suggested Sir Keir had been open to allowing the US to use British military bases for the initial strikes on Iran.
The report claimed that Cabinet ministers – including Energy Secretary Ed Miliband – had urged him not to do so.
In response to a question from reporters, Sir Keir set out a timeline of discussions between the Government and the US.
He said: “No request from the US came in the specific terms that we acceded until Saturday afternoon, therefore on Friday there was no concrete decision to be made.
“A decision had to be made when we had the request, that came in on Saturday during the course of the afternoon – we were already taking measures in relation to our own capability – that came in on Saturday afternoon, late in the afternoon.
“We then, as you would have expected, went through the details with the US over the next day, and ultimately reached a decision on Sunday, which I announced then on Sunday evening, about eight or nine o’clock.”
The Spectator story represents a potential leak of highly sensitive information from the Government’s National Security Committee.
